The Cubs' Cub
by Andy Behrens

CHICAGO — It's just after 1 on a bright Saturday afternoon at Wrigley Field. The Cubs are taking batting practice before Game Four of their divisional series against the Atlanta Braves. Cubs manager Dusty Baker leans into the batting cage while rookie Hee Seop Choi slices balls into the outfield grass.

But Baker isn't watching Choi. No one is watching Choi, except a gaggle of Asian fans holding signs that are, to most of us, utterly indecipherable. Everyone is watching Darren Baker, Dusty's kid, the precocious 4-year-old.

Darren is standing a few feet behind the batting cage, facing the crowd and wearing a "BAKER 12" jersey. He holds a plastic bat in his hands and waves it lightly, left-handed, like a pocket-sized Barry Bonds without the elbow armor. A Cubs bat boy faces Darren, holding a white plastic baseball and pretending to look at a catcher for signs. But there is no catcher. There is only the assembled media, a few hundred fans and Dusty grinning at his son.

The bat boy lobs the ball toward Darren and the kid turns on it. The pitch couldn't have been any fatter if it had been thrown by Mark Guthrie. As Darren lashes at the ball, a hollow plastic thwaap fills the air, followed by a celebratory "Woo!" from the toddler. The ball sails high and deep — perhaps as far as 25 feet — into the protective netting that shields fans from foul balls. Cubs fans are cheering. Darren punctuates his blast with a 360-degree spin, then he slowly rounds imaginary bases, skipping a little.

"Isn't he just adorable?" asks a gray-haired woman. Dusty shakes his head, chuckles and claps. "Oh, he's such a cutie!" exclaims a young girl.

Puh-leez. Bleh.

Bleh-blechety-bleh-bleh.

Cute? Perhaps. But Darren Baker can't ride this cute train forever. Cuteness is ephemeral. Darren may indeed have been marginally cute as a sidebar story in the 2002 World Series, when the Giants dugout became a home for wayward boys, but that was a year ago. He's nearly 4¾ now.

In an era when 3-year-olds have million dollar shoe deals, we can look past Darren's wide eyes, squeezable cheeks, brazen hot-dogging and cloying grin; Darren Baker embodies much of what's wrong with the modern ballplayer. His talent is dwarfed by his hubris. Consider the home run shtick: Darren makes contact, then dances, twirls and openly laughs, as if it were all just a game. Try laughing at Pedro, kid. Or Kerry Wood. You'll spit baby teeth. But Darren's no immediate threat to K-Wood, not with that reckless, looping uppercut. Darren has a hole in his swing big enough to drive a truck through. A Tonka, maybe, or a Little Tikes. Time to wean him off the Wiffle bat.

In the field, Darren is merely adequate. Good range, no glove and easily distracted. When Darren shags flies in his imaginary outfield, he attempts to catch balls one-handed, allowing several to pop out of his youth-sized glove. Two hands on the ball, kid. Fundamentals. And stop singing.

Eventually Darren leaves the field, riding atop the shoulders of his teenage babysitter. A first-row fan extends a Sharpie and his Cubs' hat.

"Darren! Darren! Sign my cap?"

The kid shrugs and shakes his head. The babysitter never slows. It's the on-field equivalent of raising a tinted limo window against the squeals of adoring fans. Darren Baker is 4 going on 24, already too big for us all.

Of course, it's also possible that Darren just can't write his name in cursive.

E-mail Andy Behrens at abehrens53 at hotmail dot com.

— graphic by Derek Evernden (derek@ocellus.net)